The other day, one of the departments at the community college where I work had a going-away party for their long-time advisor. He was a well-liked guy by almost everyone in their department, faculty and students alike, and he’d been having health problems for several years and everyone knew his retirement was on the horizon. As it turns out, the factor that hastened his leaving us was the fact that he’d just pleaded no contest to molesting his teenaged stepdaughter and will be going to prison for two years.
I’m a sexual abuse survivor myself, and although I know his years of service were appreciated by his colleagues, the idea of them having a friendly going-away party for him strikes me as absolutely repugnant. I’m toying with the idea of sending a strongly-worded letter to someone, be it the department head or the college chancellor, or perhaps the faculty in his department. I’m not sure how many of them knew about the circumstances surrounding his departure, but I’ve known about the charges for several months just from hearing about it through the college grapevine, so it’s not hard to imagine that at least some of them knew about it as well. I don’t know which of them attended the party and whether what they knew about him had anything to do with their decision. (The people in my department weren’t invited, so I didn’t even know about it until afterwards.)
So do you guys think I should say something to someone about it, or would I be stepping out of line to tell another department what to do with their colleague and I should just keep my mouth shut?
Since you only heard about it through the “grapevine”, and don’t have enough detail with regard to how it affected their decision, if at all, I’d leave it alone.
It stirs trouble on multiple fronts, including the people you heard it from and those you expect to act on it. The law seems to be taking care of the relevant crime, which is where that should start and end.
You’re going to raise a fuss with the administration regarding an event that has already transpired on the premise that, although you lack substantive information to confirm it, that someone should have known something about what was going on in his private life and what legal actions where pending against him.
Your premise sounds batshit insane. He may be a horrible human being, but holding persons unknown to account for information you have no possible way of knowing they did, or did not possess, is asinine.
Yeah, it’s too late for anything to be done, if there was anything at all that would have changed anything.
If you want to investigate on your own, and determine factually whether the faculty knew of all of this ahead of time, and want to stir things up about his possible pension or whatever, do so. Bring a reporter into it; make a stink. But be sure of your facts first.
Why do you think that they’d give half a shit let alone report it? If it’s in the public record, they already know about it and would have already reported on it if it were newsworthy. Sadly, this sort of thing happens many thousands of times a year.
Even you have substantive proof of a conviction, let it go. It’s absolutely not your business and frankly, I think you’re trying to get back at this guy for something someone else did to you. If he offends you so much, don’t go to the party.
If you don’t have proof and you proceed, even the mere allegation can ruin this guy’s name permanently and irrevocably if he’s innocent. Especially in sexual abuse cases, accusals turn into convictions with nothing more than the testimony of the alleged victim.
I work with a person in the same building who is awaiting trial for a couple of counts of child pornography. I’m pretty sure the police are pretty thorough with their investigation before they lay these type of charges but the fact remains he hasn’t been found guilty yet. So I’m neutral about it, although I avoid him as do a lot of other people. I get where you’re coming from ** tsarina** regarding your feelings of disgust. The fact that he was found guilty but people are still having a *your a jolly good fellow *party before he retires is a little bewildering, if I was part of that department who was invited to his party, I would just decline going. I have a feeling they’re may not that many people showing up. News like this spreads fast I suspect everyone knows, someone is just going through the motions in order to appear “nice”. Why ? I don’t know, but just let it go.
I knew this guy at a local game store who one day was suddenly arrested for molesting a 12-year old boy. Then he fled while awaiting trial and was on America’s Most Wanted. A year or so later they found him working at a carnival in another part of the state. He was convicted and sentenced to something like 180 years in prison.
No really relevant but I always think about how weird that was.
I think you are personally upset, which you have every right to be. Wouldn’t it be better to mention it personally to someone you trust in that department? I understand your point of view, and if there was anything known they might’ve considered the feelings of people who have gone through this sort of thing and don’t particularly want to celebrate molesters. I don’t see anything wrong with bringing it to the attention of someone in the department, just to let them know that people do take note of these things and it does hurt feelings.
I would say: see if it comes up with anyone, or see if there is anyone you can talk to there. I know these sort of situations, they can keep weighing on your mind.
I do agree that a strongly worded letter is not really the way to go, as this is speculation about an event that has already happened and not even in your department.
Also…don’t forget your local newspaper. If it’s something that you feel the community should know about, then maybe you should write a letter to the editor. Or maybe the paper has one of those ‘Ask the City’ columns, and you can ask why someone who’s retiring due to an arrest and jail time is being allowed to take full pension, if he even is; who knows?
